Native to the Republic: Negotiating Citizenship and Social Welfare in Marseille "Immigrant" Neighborhoods since 1945.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the intersections of modernization and decolonization at the local level in late twentieth century France. During the post World War Two economic boom, France implemented a comprehensive urbanism program intended to modernize and rationalize the nation by putting the city, the home, and the citizen in order. During this period, France was also working out the repercussions of decolonization as families from former French colonies in Africa and Asia migrated to the metropole. Municipal technocrats and central state planners had to decide how migrant families fit into an emerging national vision for a modern France. An important feature of this vision was developing a welfare state which included the mass construction of modern housing. Beginning in the 1960s, many migrant families moved into these large, concrete, Le Corbusier influenced housing projects on the fringes of French cities including Marseille. Through my examination of housing debates in Marseille neighborhoods, I explore how concepts of ethnic and social difference have shaped the post-1945 French welfare state. I argue that difference is instituted through everyday negotiations between government authorities, neighborhood associations, and families from former French colonies. As the 2004 ban on headscarves suggests, the recognition of cultural and racial difference remains a difficult and often taboo subject in France. While English language scholarship on post-colonial migration focuses on questions of race and ethnicity, French language studies tend to frame the immigrant question in terms of class inequalities. For example, recent French scholarship stresses that there are no racial problems in France, only social problems. I argue that only by illuminating how Republican discourse makes sense of the social question can we make sense of the unnamed politics of race in France. More specifically, I argue that the social question reflects a cluster of shifting common sense assumptions about class, culture, and race. Families from former colonies practice citizenship by asserting their right to social benefits—like housing or employment—as well as their right to cultural difference.